AFL team would 'unify' state
A Tasmanian AFL team would unite the north and south of the state, economist Saul Eslake says.

Mr Eslake was a member of the former Labor government's AFL ray ban lenses for sale steering committee, which was tasked with campaigning for a Tasmanian team in 2008.
Earlier this month, Premier Will Hodgman called for the AFL to relocate the ray ban official beleaguered Gold Coast Suns to Tasmania, even getting into a fiery back and forth with club chairman Tony Cochrane on Twitter.
The Suns have since won their past two matches, including an 86 point drubbing of Hawthorn.
Mr Eslake said it had been the AFL that had held Tasmania back from securing a team, treating the state with "something that ray ban sunglasses at lowest price borders on contempt".
"Because football is so widely and passionately supported in Tasmania, the AFL seems to take the view that there is no upside, financially or otherwise, for the AFL in locating a team here, compared with the potential gains that they see in colonising parts of Australia which do not have the same historical tradition of supporting AFL," Mr Eslake said.
In February, outgoing AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick claimed that Tasmania had not received a team due to the perceived rivalry between the north and south of the state.
Mr Eslake said Mr Fitzpatrick's ray ban polarized sunglasses comments were "disgraceful".
"The AFL has been consciously encouraging rivalry between [West Coast] and Fremantle, Port Adelaide and Adelaide, Sydney and Greater Western Sydney," he said.
"In other states they encourage it, here they use it as an excuse."
A Tasmanian team, Mr Eslake said, would be "a way of unifying the state".
"It would be something all Tasmanians would get behind," he said.
Qld unemployment 6.4%; Tas 5.8%. Tassie more national tourism awards than Qld.
He also believed it would be less costly to bring Launceston's University of Tasmania Stadium up to full AFL standards than it would be to do the same for Blundstone Arena in Bellerive.
Mr Eslake said the economic impact a Tasmanian AFL team would have on the state would be significant.
He said games against big market teams such as Collingwood and Richmond would attract large numbers of visitors to Tasmania.
"You'd have people coming down for those games from Melbourne in a way that they don't come from Port Adelaide or Western Sydney or the Gold Coast," Mr Eslake said.
He equated the potential impact of a Tasmanian AFL team to the success of Dark Mofo.
"[It would] keep people coming here when a lot of the rest of the time they don't," Mr Eslake said.

Opposition sport spokesperson Michelle O'Byrne said a Tasmanian team would not just "fall in our lap".
She noted Labor had called for the establishment of a Tasmanian AFL academy in 2015.
"An academy would be the launching pad for a Tasmanian team in the AFL and make sure there's a clear path to the highest level for our young players," Ms O'Byrne said.